Tuesday, June 21, 2011

The Kushite Marriage Pattern Drove Kushite Expansion

Alice C. Linsley

In reference to an earlier essay on the Kushite migration out of Africa, Maximus asked, "Did the city of Mohenjo Daro belong to the Kushite Sudras? Are Dravidians the indigenous peoples of the Indian subcontinent?"

Answering that question is difficult because there is still much to discover about the Dravidians. However, it does appear that they had a dark skin tone and that their language and religious practices resemble some peoples of the Nilotic Sudan. They appear to be part of the ethnically complex Afro-Asiatic Dominion which extended from the Niger-Benue Trough to southern Pakistan and southern India.

The Dravidians are associated with the Sudra, a word that means black and is also the name of the Sudan, which was part of ancient Kush. Mohenjo Daro is one of about six identified settlements in southern Pakistan that share a cultural pattern that is essentially Kushite and specifically Horite. The temples and shrines of the region reflect the religion of Horus. Har-appa means "Horus is father" in Dravidian. Appa is the Dravidian word for father. Perhaps the Dravidians originated in the Nile region or perhaps there were Horite priests living among them. There were O-piru living among them and the word Opiru is the Dravidian equivalent of Hapiru or Habiru (Hebrew). The Opiru and the Habiru were devotees of Horus and their religion took the sun as the emblem of the Creator.

The book of Genesis indicates that Kushites moved out of the Upper Nile area into Mesopotamia and Central Asia. They brought their religious practices with them. Kushite rulers, such as Nimrodand their priests spread a common religion from ancient Kush/Nubia to southern India and beyond. Horite religious practices are found in Cambodia, as evidenced from this stone relief at Anghor Wat which shows the solar boat of Re with Horus flying as a falcon above the sun. The etiology of Anghor Wat is also telling. Wat means village, town, settlement or shrine. Anghor is ankh-Hor which means something like "Long live Horus!"

Ra's solar boat with Horus perched as falcon upon the mastImage found at Anghor Wat

The Nilotic or Kushitic religious life spread through the agency of ruler-priests who controlled water systems at a time when the Sahara, Mesopotamia, southern Pakistan and southern India were wetter. These ruler-priests, called Horites in the Bible, were devotees of Horus, who was called "son of Ra." Both Horus and Ra are represented by the swelling of the sun. The Arabic yakburu means “he is getting big” and with the intensive active prefix: yukabbiru means "he is enlarging." This is a reference to the morning ritual of Horite priests who greeted the rising sun with prayers and watched as it expanded across the horizon.

The Egyptians called the temple priestly attendants ‘pr.w, the w being the plural suffix. This has been rendered '*wap'er' by the Afro-Asiatic linguist Christopher Ehret.The *wap'er had significant political authority alongside the ruler. He presided over the rituals directed toward the High God and acted as the intercessor and prophet.

The Dravidian east-facing temple was termed O-piru, meaning "Sun House." Sar-gon the Great is said to have been the son of a virgin queen who was born in an O-piru. His home city was called Azu-piranu, meaning House of God (Azu). (Azu in Akkadian, Asa in Chadic, Asha in Kushitic, Ashai in Hebrew; a Jerusalem priest was named Am-ashai in Neh. 11:13).

Kushite expansion out of Africa

The Kushite diffusion across the Levant, Arabia, Mesopotamia, Central Asia and beyond has been documented by independent research in various fields including genetics, migration studies, linguistics, archaeology and anthropology. The Kushite conquest of the Sumerian city-states is well-documented in ancient Near Eastern Studies.

Sargon the Elder conquered Nippur in 2340 B.C. and established his capital in Akkad. His grandson was Sargon the Great who is probably Nimrod of Genesis 10. Sar-gon is a title meaning High King or King of Kings. The Elamite word for king is sunki, a cognate of the Hahm/Hamitic sarki, meaning king. The Sumerian word for king is sar and the Chadic word for ruler is gon. Thus, Nimrod is remembered as Sar-gon the Great. Nim-rod is his Egyptian name that was borrowed from the Kushites. Nim-lotwas governor of Nekhen. He controlled Middle Egypt and the nomes of Upper Egypt. Nekhen, in modern Sudan, is the earliest known site of Horus worship.

The researcher and lecturer on African Culture, Dr. Catherine Acholonu, reports that in Nigerian lore Nimrod is known as Sharru-Kin which is interpreted to mean “the righteous King.” Nimrod's Akkadian name was Šarru-kīnu, which is usually translated “the true king.”

Many of the place names of Sar-gon’s kingdom match places names in ancient Kush.For example, Accad is Agade, which is the original name of a river settlement in Odukpani, Nigeria. (Its geographical coordinates are 5° 29' 0" North, 7° 58' 0" East.) The name Akkad is also related to the name Agades, a city in Niger which is famous for metalwork. Sargon’s territory was called Kish, which is Kush. One of the cities of his territory was Mari which is the Egyptian word for Mary. Another was Yar-muti (Old Arabic) which means Obedient (muti) Friend (yar). A seventh century Assyrian text says that his city on the bank of the Euphrates was called Azu-piranu. It was a Horite shrine as evidenced by the word piranu, related to O-piru. Azu is a variant of the East African name for God - Asa. Azu-piranu means “House of God” and is equivalent to the Hebrew word Bethel.

The Kushites were kingdom builders who moved out of Africa. As the younger son of Kush, Nimrod was probably the "sent away" son, as were Cain (Kahn - king), Abraham, Ishmael, Jacob, Joseph and Moses. Sent-away sons moved away from their fathers and established new territories. They did so with their fathers' blessing and gifts. By building a kingdom they brought honor to their fathers and extended their influence.

Abraham gave gifts to all his sons and sent them away from Isaac who inherited Abraham's territory. Likewise, Kush gave gifts to Nimrod and sent him away from his older brother Ramah whose territory was in northern Arabia. As with all sent-away sons found in the Bible, there was struggle and hardship, but ultimately these sons prospered. Nimrod’s territory was even greater than his brother’s. It extended the length of the Tigris-EuphratesValley, and within this territory there were three principal cities: Babel, Erech and Akkad (Gen.10:10). The script used to communicate across Nimrod’s empire was “Akkadian” and it represents sounds that are found in the Nilo-Saharan languages.

Diffusion of the Horite belief system was driven by four historically identified factors: Kushite migration out of Africa, commerce, conquests, and marriage alliances between the Horite ruler-priests. The Kushite migration out of Africa has been well documented.Commerce between the Horn of Africa, Arabia and Central Asia in the second and third millenium B.C. has also been well documented. Sar-gon's conquests of the Sumerian city-states have been well documented.

My research into the genealogical material in Genesis involves analysis of the Horite kinship pattern whereby the rulers had two wives and at least two concubines. The first wife was a half-sister and the second wife was a patrilineal cousin or niece. The marriages of firstborn sons contributed to the diffusion of Horite religion. The firstborn son of the half-sister wife ascended to the throne of his biological father. The firstborn son of the patrilineal cousin bride ascended to the throne of his maternal grandfather. Other sons were given gifts of servants, jewelry, flocks, herds and skilled craftsmen and sent away. The importance of this marriage and ascendancy pattern as a driving factor in Kushite expansion should not be overlooked.